Apple’s stock share price has risen today, after being down this morning, due...

Apple’s stock share price has risen today, after being down this morning, due to a rumor of an imminent stock split announcement. SeekingAlpha points to a tweet from The Street’s Doug Kass that seems to be the original source of the rumor. Apple’s next shareholder meeting will be held tomorrow, and this is where ...

Google Is Going To $1,000! (GOOG) – Silicon Alley

Two separate analysts posted reports this morning, arguing that Google's stock will go...

Two separate analysts posted reports this morning, arguing that Google's stock will go to $1,000 per share. CLSA said it moved its price target due to Google ability to charge more for clicks on its ads. And here is Bernstein Research analyst Carlos Kirjner argument, via Forbes: “We believe mass adoption of smart phones, tablets and the mobile Web is a large value creation opportunity for Google,” Kirjner writes in a research note. “In other words, we disagree with the most popular Google bear case, which posits that mobile is bad for revenue growth and profitability. We also think YouTube is still an under-appreciated asset. In our opinion, the emergence of the mobile Web, connecting billions of consumers everywhere, all the time to the Web will be a strong net positive for Google. We believe mobility, together with continued innovation in search such as new formats and better targeting, will support growth of search revenues in the double digits for several ...

The ‘Amazon Tax’ Is A Pretty Big Disappointment – Silicon Alley

(Reuters) - Sales tax from Internet commerce, a prize pursued for years by...

(Reuters) - Sales tax from Internet commerce, a prize pursued for years by U.S. state governments, is starting to arrive in California and a few other states, providing millions of dollars in new revenue, though not as much as a benchmark study once forecast. After fighting hard to get e-tailers such as Amazon.com Inc to start charging sales tax, and eventually passing a law requiring collection, the California Board of Equalization reported last week it took in $96.4 million in September-December 2012, its first full quarter of collections. Coinciding with the holiday shopping season, that result put the state well on its way to meeting its forecast budget of $107 million in new e-taxes for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2012, as set by the California Department of Finance. But that revenue falls far short of ambitious expectations set in 2009 by a University of Tennessee study that greatly influenced the online sales tax debate nationwide. The study estimated that California...

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt Plans To Sell 3.2M Company Shares Over The Next Year, 42% Of His Stake In Google – Techcrunch

Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt, the company today reported in an SEC filing,...

Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt, the company today reported in an SEC filing, plans to sell about 3.2 million of the Class A common stock he currently owns through a stock trading plan, which would reduce his share in the company by about 42%. At Google's current stock price, this transaction would be worth about $2.5 billion...

Samsung Is Going To Invest $100 Million In American Startups – Silicon Alley

MENLO PARK, California (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics is looking for some Silicon Valley magic. The company, a household name in televisions and mobile devices, is expanding its presence in the region with a new $100 million venture fund that will invest in early-stage startups, particularly those in remote computing, cybersecurity, mobility and mobile privacy. The idea is for the South Korean corporation to provide funding and partnership opportunities to startups that will ultimately drive growth for the its vast electronics components business. "It is important to be in Silicon Valley," said Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer of Samsung's device solutions unit, who is leading the initiative. "This is the epicenter of disruptive forces. And we want to make sure we are part of the disruptive forces." The company's effort offers an opportunity for entrepreneurs to access Samsung's resources, including research and development centers, marketing and branding muscle, he ad...

Apple: Most Undervalued Stock on Wall St ? – Forbes

Apple (AAPL) shares have been trounced over the past few months, for a variety of...

Apple (AAPL) shares have been trounced over the past few months, for a variety of reasons. However, one of the biggest investment banks on Wall Street thinks Apple is the most undervalued stock it covers...

Apple just announced its Q1 2013 earnings, and investors don’t seem to be...

Apple just announced its Q1 2013 earnings, and investors don’t seem to be convinced. The company missed on revenue and exceeded expectations on earnings per share. After a solid day for Apple shares (NASDAQ:AAPL), the stock dropped more than 10 percent in after-hours trading, inducing a big market capitalization meltdown. It is the biggest drop of the past few years by far for Apple shares. As I previously wrote, Apple suffers from a lot of uncertainty and volatility these days. But again, investors just shaved off $50 billion market cap. As Apple is the biggest traded company in the world, a double digit drop is massive. It doesn’t mean that Apple shares will drop even more tomorrow. It is a short-term reaction to somewhat disappointing quarterly earnings. Apple still generated $13.1 billion in profit — nothing to be ashamed of. Even more important, today’s earnings were highly anticipated as analysts and investors didn’t know what to expect...

France, Google And The Internet Tax: It’s Just Not Going To Fly – Forbes

France is again stumbling around in its attempts to tax Google (and Facebook...

France is again stumbling around in its attempts to tax Google (and Facebook and the other internet giants) and as usual, these attempts just aren't going to fly. The French Government just doesn't grasp that it's signed itself up to a system, the European Union, that doesn't allow it to tax in the manner it thinks it ought to be able to...

Why Free Is Bad: Businesses Should Be Happy To Pay For Key Services – ReadWriteWeb

Guest author Mike McDerment is co-founder and CEO of cloud-based small business accounting...

Guest author Mike McDerment is co-founder and CEO of cloud-based small business accounting provider FreshBooks.
Late last year Google Apps for Business eliminated its free version (see Google Dares Businesses To Switch To Microsoft Office). You might think this is a bad thing for small business owners. Everything free is good, right?
Wrong.
There are big downsides to getting things for free that are poorly understood and rarely considered, and upsides to paying for the things that really matter — especially for small businesses.
First, let’s look at some downsides to free:
1. Free things are never really free. When we don’t fork over dollars for products or services, we think of them as free. But we always give up something. When it comes to online services, that something is usually personal data or content you’ve created — think Facebook and Instagram, whose privacy policies obscure the line between what you own vs. what they own. For consumers, that might be an acceptable bargain...

AP Sources: ‘Fiscal cliff’ deal emerging – Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The contours of a deal to avert the `fiscal cliff'...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The contours of a deal to avert the `fiscal cliff' emerged Monday, with Democrats and Republicans agreeing to raise tax rates on family income over $450,000 a year, increase the estate tax rate and extend unemployment benefits for one year, officials familiar with the negotiations said....

Scott Belskey is the CEO of Behance, a startup that Adobe bought earlier...

Scott Belskey is the CEO of Behance, a startup that Adobe bought earlier this month for a reported $150 million. Why did the deal happen? We have two answers from you. One is from Splat-F's Dan Frommer, who says this is a smart deal because Behance, a network for creative people, is highly-regarded in the design community. Adobe makes money — a $833* million profit this past fiscal year on $4.4 billion revenue — selling creative software like Photoshop and Acrobat, and increasingly renting it via its Creative Cloud, which is growing by about 10,000 subscriptions per week. Its long-term goal, therefore, should be being everything to the creative community, from essential software to professional socializing. Not everything Adobe does is brilliant — far from it. But picking up small but important parts of the modern designer’s toolkit, such as Typekit and Behance, is very smart...

Here’s Why Apple Just Said Its Stock Should Only Be Worth $0.00001 Per Share (AAPL) – Silicon Alley

Here's an interesting tidbit from Apple's preliminary proxy statement: Apple is asking shareholders, for the first time, to assign a value to its shares. What? Don't investors assign a value to Apple's shares every second it trades? Well, yes and no. Apple shares today have no par value—an archaic accounting concept that assigns a nominal value to shares. It dates back to the old days when stock was issued on paper certificates, on which the par value would be printed. In theory, in some circumstances, shareholders could trade in the certificate and ask the company to redeem their shares for that value. To avoid creating a liability, companies either set their shares' par value very low, or assign no par value, if that's allowed in their jurisdiction. Apple was set up decades ago in California, which allows companies to assign no par value to their shares. But that's creating legal and accounting headaches for the company in areas where the par value figures into local laws...